Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much the Government is investing in skills to support the fourth industrial revolution.

This Government is investing in a wide range of programmes which contribute to increasing the technological skills base needed to be globally competitive. For example, the funding available to the FE sector to support adult participation will be £3.41bn by 2019-20. We are investing around £80m to support the creation of 5 new National Colleges. These centres of high-tech training will ensure the UK has skilled people in industries crucial to economic growth – high speed rail, nuclear, onshore oil and gas, digital skills and the creative industries.

We are also reforming technical education to put in place a world-class technical option that provides preparation for highly skilled employment. A new prestigious and high quality technical option for 16 year olds will prepare individuals for employment in occupations which require the acquisition of both a substantial body of technical knowledge and a set of practical skills valued by industry.

Critical to increasing the take-up of STEM subjects is the quality of teaching so we have announced £67 million for the next 5 years to recruit and train an extra 2,500 maths and physics teachers and upskill 15,000 existing maths and physics teachers.

Higher Apprenticeships and Degree Apprenticeships are helping bring on the technical skills that manufacturers need, and we have seen a 43.6 increase in apprenticeship starts in the Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies sector subject area since 2010/11.

University technical colleges (UTCs) have been established to address skills gaps in local and national industries, providing a technical education to meet the needs of modern businesses. There are currently 48 UTCs open and a further 7 UTCs are in development which plan to open in 2017 and beyond.